


Seer in Dreams

by WotanAnubis



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror-ish, Witchcraft, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 13:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11082147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WotanAnubis/pseuds/WotanAnubis
Summary: In which curiosity leads Cynthia to learn more than she ever bargained for.





	Seer in Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really write horror. Or read much of it. Still, I had this idea and figured, why not write it down?

Cynthia walked excitedly down the empty street. She was so close now, she could barely contain herself. A huge grin had plastered itself across her face as she'd set out about half an hour ago now and had only got wider as the seconds passed.

She reached down into one of her pockets and took out a ruby. A red glow burned deep within and seemed to be getting brighter with her every step. A few days ago, once she thought she knew what she was doing, Cynthia had carved the sigil _Guide_ on its surface and here it was, guiding her.

Cynthia wasn't a witch. Or hadn't been one. Magic and sigils and runes and all that were just the silly fantasies of popular media and superstitious morons. The occult didn't exist and anyone interested in was wasting their time on complete nonsense. She'd gone to University to study Mathematics and she was pretty good at it.

Which was why it was something of a puzzle, even to Cynthia herself, when she one day decided to venture into the historical section of the University's library. Most of the books there were either about history or were careful replicas of actual ancient books. If they were about Maths they were mostly wrong or outdated. Maybe she'd just been curious.

One book had caught her eye. _A Brief Treatise on the Practice of Witchcraft of the Pre-Classical Era_ dated 1642. It was exactly the sort of rubbish she normally avoided. She still didn't know why she'd picked it up. She told herself she was interested in reading about historical people writing about other historical people. She wasn't sure that had been her actual reason.

She'd read four pages, then shoved the book back on its shelf and ran from the library. She'd tried to forget it, threw herself into her Mathematical studies, worked until she practically passed out from exhaustion. But when she finally went to sleep, her dreams had been filled with that replica of that ancient book. No, not the book. The single sigil she'd seen. It had burned a bright, fiery red in her dreaming mind. And behind it, barely visible, other shapes passed in and out of focus. Waiting for her to see them.

And now...

Now Cynthia walked into a dusty, second-hand bookstore. It was even emptier than the streets had been. And quiet. There was a thick, heavy atmosphere that seemed to resent sound and filled the air with powerful silence.

There was only one other person Cynthia could see. A sullen twenty-something sat behind the counter. Short, black hair, bone white skin, black lips, thick black mascara. Frilly black clothes and far too many necklaces showing way too many supposedly-occult symbols. Goth. Definitely not the one Cynthia was looking for.

The goth girl looked at her for a moment and narrowed her eyes as though she was angry someone had had the audacity to walk into her store. Cynthia gave her a vague smile and walked towards the distant shelves. The girl behind the counter watched her a moment longer, then turned back to her book.

Cynthia looked over the books on display without seeing them. She scratched at the tattoo on her right wrist. It was her first tattoo and pretty new. The tattooist hadn't known it, but she had combined the sigils for _Seek_ and _Truth_ on Cynthia's skin. There had been no mystical rituals and the tattooist had used ordinary tattooing ink, not blood or anything. And yet, ever since she got her tattoo, Cynthia always looked exactly in the right place whenever she wanted to look something up or find something out.

And now it was itching. Weird. And there were still no other people in the store besides herself and the girl behind the counter. So maybe...?

The goth girl looked up from her book. "Help you?" she asked, in a tone of voice that suggested the only help she was willing to give was getting Cynthia out the door.

Cynthia put her right hand on the counter and rolled up her sleeve, revealing her tattoo. Baleful red light flared from under the goth's black clothes. _Power_. And... _Conquest_? _Rule_? _Domination_? There was more, too, but the light had already faded.

"The fuck is that!?" the girl screeched. "You fucking moron! The fuck were you thinking tattooing _that_ on your skin?"

Cynthia rolled her sleeve back down. "I guess that means you recognise it."

"Sure do," said the girl. "And I hope you thought it was just a pretty pattern. But since you deliberately showed it to me..."

" _Seek Truth_ ," said Cynthia, a touch smugly.

The goth sighed. "Yeah, I guess that's about as close as English is gonna get, isn't it? Fuck."

"Well, you know mine. What's yours?" Cynthia asked eagerly.

"It isn't a fucking tattoo is what it is," said the girl. "The fuck do you care, anyway?"

"Because... because it turns out magic is real. That there are words or, or expressions that are more real than reality. That rewrite the world around them just by existing. And I want to know more."

"You want to know more," the girl said hollowly.

" _Yes_ ," said Cynthia. "Who wouldn't?"

"I dunno," said the girl. "Sane people?"

"It's not insane to want to learn more," said Cynthia. "Learning is how humans came to be where we are."

The goth girl chuckled. "I guess that's true. Only not the way you think. Fine. Whatever. What do you want?"

"Like I said, I want to learn more," Cynthia answered.

"And you think I can teach you?" the girl said.

Cynthia tapped her wrist. "I know you can."

The girl was silent for a long time. "Go home," she said at last. "Sleep on it. Come back tomorrow. If you still want 'learn more'."

For a moment, Cynthia was all ready to argue, but she could see by the look in the girl's eyes that was about all she was going to get.

"Alright. See you then. I'm Cynthia, by the way. What's yours?"

The girl smiled, but there was no humour in it. "I'll tell you tomorrow, maybe."

* * * * *

Cynthia stood in darkness, a crowd of people in front her. They were... well, she didn't want to use the word 'primitive', but that's what they were. They were from before recorded history. From before cities and villages. From before agriculture. Men and women dressed in furs and hides and each one of them held a weapon. Axes and spears and bows, all made out of wood and stone.

They were looking in Cynthia's direction, but not at Cynthia. They were all staring at something just behind her. Part of Cynthia wanted to turn around and see what it was they were all looking at, but her attention was caught by the one person actually looking at her.

She was a woman and, unlike all those around her, she was naked. Her body was decorated with some kind of green warpaint, drawing patterns on her skin that probably had some meaning to her fellow ancient people but told Cynthia nothing. And, burning bright red on her chest, far more real than anything around her, more real than even Cynthia, a familiar sigil. _Power_. _Rule_.

The naked witch walked towards Cynthia, the armed crowd obediently parting to let her through. As she drew closer, Cynthia could see the green whorls on her skin weren't paint. They were blood.

"And here you are," said the witch.

Her English was faultless and her voice was that of the goth girl from the bookstore.

"I guess so," said Cynthia. "Is this is were you start teaching me?"

"No," said the witch. "This is where you decide. Turn around."

Cynthia did so and staggered back, terrified. There was indeed something behind her. Some **thing**. Some mass of flesh and teeth and claws and eyes. Venom spewed from countless sores and scorched the grass around it. It... made noise, but Cynthia's ears couldn't comprehend it. It wasn't anything as straightforward as a snarl or a growl. The sound that came from those terrible maws was... was... the death of love and the rotting of stars.

The air around the abomination was empty, and then it wasn't. The sky opened some of its many eyes, then closed it again. Snapped at with its maws. Spewed forth its venom. And Cynthia realised this... thing... only partially existed in this reality. Where it really lived was close by, but just on the other side. The revolting mass she could see was only the bit that had broken through into here.

"Don't worry," said the witch. "This is only a Beast. And anyway, this all happened long ago."

The Beast vanished. The people vanished. There was only Cynthia and the witch. And the witch, if looked at just right, was also the goth from the bookstore. And a thousand other women she couldn't quite see, all the way across history.

"The world didn't always belong to humans," said the witch. "Well, obviously. Any child of six can tell you it belonged to the dinosaurs once. But it never really belonged to the dinosaurs either."

"Are you going to tell me it belonged to those... Beasts?" Cynthia asked.

"No," said the witch. "To their masters. But, lucky us, their time came to an end. Their grip on this reality faded. And some of us humans learned a thing or about their power and used it to, uhm, help them leave a bit faster."

The witch smiled nastily. She moved her hand up to her chest and let a single finger wander across the lines of her glowing sigil.

"These words were never human. They belonged to **Them**."

"Oh," said Cynthia. She looked down at her wrist. At _Seek_ and _Truth_. She wondered what those words meant to the beings that had created something like the Beast. And then wished she hadn't.

"Problem is, **They** want this world back. **They** 've been gnawing at the boundary between realities since forever. 'Course, other people have been hard at work strengthening the barrier."

"People like you," said Cynthia.

"That's right," said the witch. "It's not always been easy. People can get so touchy about witchcraft sometimes. And by now, the edges of our reality have been getting a bit... ragged. It's how some complete amateur could get a tattoo of power that actually works. And, sometimes, when the stars are just right, it allows **Them** to send one of their Beasts through. Guess who they go hunting for?"

"Us," Cynthia whispered.

The witch smiled. "Us? You're not one of us. Yet. So they don't hunt you. Yet. All you have to do is just cover up that tattoo of yours and forget all this and then you'll get to go through life worrying about the bills like a normal person. Won't that be nice?"

"You want me to... to give up?" said Cynthia. "To be ignorant?"

"I don't care what you do," said the witch. "All I'm saying is, you can still walk away. And in case you think this is just a dream."

* * * * *

Cynthia awoke in a sweat. Her alarm clock said it was about two at night, but it was quite bright in her room, lit as it was by the sigil burning in the air.

 _Power_. _Rule_. _Guard_.

The burning sigil faded and it was dark in Cynthia's room again. Almost dark. She looked down at her wrist. _Seek_. _Truth._ Her tattoo glowed faintly red. The glow was only barely there, but it was still there. It wasn't a true sigil yet, but it could be.

She could get rid of it. Obliterate it. Tattoo over it until it didn't exist as its own thing any more. And that, hopefully, would be that. She could focus on mathematics and cut the occult out of her life.

And that life would be a lie. There was more to reality than what she saw. She knew that now. She would always know that now. Could she really live knowing that she was just denying the truth and playing along with an illusion?

Then again... was knowing the truth really worth the possibility that, one night, some Beast would tear through reality and into her room? That some thing of teeth and poison and death would appear out of nowhere to kill her?

Was that a price she was willing to pay just to learn more about the truth?

Was it?


End file.
